The gameplay is so great. The cinematic safe beautiful but the writing is so bad so it’s hard to find the proper balance. And the stuff in the hub area that isn’t combat is also bad. But moment to moment playing I absolutely love
Man epic games just gave it free snd i feel like i been blessed with a game i wouldnt have had the luxury to try in the crap shoot these days. Wow. It feels like a modern day turn based JRPG, like updated just enough to look fire, but it’s just turn based final fantasy type combat, simple and fun and operates well, with the Marvel. Story bland but it’s also lit cause wtf why is blade and iron man fighting lilith, Lucifer’s supposed wife…
In retrospect, waiting for the sale was a great idea. I have been playing it for the last 3 or 4 days. I am very surprised how much I am enjoying it. And a little surprised it didn't do better financially. Just a lot of fun to play.
You just said in retrospect waiting for the sale was a great idea. So that may explain why it didn’t do well financially. I would have paid full price for this game because it really is that good. 40 hours in just under a week right now and I’m not even a quarter through the story. Super addicting
This is such a time vampyre! I get the "just one more turn" syndrome because there's always something to grind and upgrade and you need just one more mission.
Exactly! This is what I've been experiencing for the 45 hrs. long of my first run and just got to see the first dread maiden. My Hunter was overleveled because of those side missions/daily quests lol.
I know a lot of people have been turned off by the friendship/ relationship simulation aspect of the game, but I have to say, I loved all that stuff. Call me a total nerd, but I loved hanging out with and having deep conversations with my favorite Marvel heroes, and I genuinely started to feel a kinship with some of them. Yes, there's an apocalypse going on and it may seem weird to have club activities and casual hangouts during all that, but keep in mind this is established from the get go to be a long-term, ongoing threat, and these are superheroes-they deal with this kind of thing all the time. It's just another day on the job for them, so of course they have to unwind and indulge in personal hobbies at the end of the day. No one can be in crisis mode 24/7, so I think all that stuff worked really nicely and gave the game some depth and variety beyond just being a card combat game.
As always really like your even handed approach to reviews. I appreciate that you don't get hyperbolic regarding game faults. Appreciate that you don't beat us over the head with negativity. As close to an objective review as I have seen.
After beating the game with all the DLC, I can easily say this is one of my favorites of all time, and that's partly because I'm a super hero fan and the characters are all very fleshed out with a great deal of dialogue and banter between one another. The other part is the strategic gameplay, which was much more satisfying than I expected it to be.
Currently playing after getting legendary edition for 25$ on PlayStation, I have been glued to my screen & have pumped many hours into it, I think it’s such an amazingly unique experience & deserves so much more DLC, it’s so sad that it was considered a commercial “flop”, I really wish it gets recognized for the gem it is & support again or a sequel!
It's crazy, I'll wait years for a game to come out and I will play it 30hrs and be done with it. I just check this game out on a whim and Ive been hooked for weeks! The gameplay loop is just so relaxing to me!
I can pretty much agree with your assessments. The only difference I have is the story. I actually loved it. For me, since my Hunter is the main character, I was creating my own story of sorts, I didnt have too much a pre existing notion of all the other heroes. If I tried to identify the actual hero to what I expected them to act like, I would agree. The story was kind of bunk. However, dropping that preconceived notion and let the story develope as unique, then I really started enjoying it and was honestly pretty sad when it ended. I love the friendship simulator, but wouldn't mind getting out of the friend zone with some characters should I choose too...if you know what I mean...Overall amazing game. The only thing keeping me out of it is the performance. I operates fine for awhile. I am guessing there is a massive memory leak cause the performance gets progressively worse over time. I need to reboot my entire system just to get it back to "Ok" performance.
A couple of things ... While the writing isn't great, the voice acting is amazing. Steve Blum as Wolvy, Jennifer Hale as Lilith, Michael Jai White as Blade, Yuri Lowenthal as Spidey, Laura Bailey as Magik. It is obvious why the needed to charge AAA price, as the voice crew is definitely AAA tier talent. Many of the characters that are acting childish, is actually on point if you are familiar with their comic book persona. The arrogance of Strange and Stark is definitely on point, Magik being stunted emotionally and being reclusive is on point. Spidey feeling inadequate to the other heroes, Blade's whole tough guy act, Cap's positivity are also all on point. Second point ... I really like the plot of the story. I love how you the main character is like "What do you mean I am the leader, I have only ever been just a weapon to bring down my mother." I love the story with the ghost and exploring the Abby grounds and learning about the elder gods(not talked about much in the MCU). Third point ... I, too, feared the combat with the cards would be a mess but have been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it. Finally, I have been telling my friends that unless you just desperately want this game it is best to wait and pick it up on sale. I think a good price point would have been around 30-40 USD.
Absolutely loving this game, I know some people weren’t happy with the game but I love games like xcom, wasteland, divinity original sin and obviously as a marvel fan and and strategy game lover had to have this one . I admit sometimes it the dialogue can be bad but honestly I’m really enjoying every aspect of the game. Really enjoy the abbey as well as LOVE the combat and the card aspect . Good review man!
This 100% I see people saying the combat saves the game - which if you love combat makes sense. But I think some of the attraction is for folks who enjoy more than just combat. I almost didn't get it because I thought it was all combat focused. When I saw it had more I took the risk and totally fell for it. I enjoy all aspects - combat, story/characters, and the Abbey.
You should check out Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. It is similar to Xcom but watered down. I played through it multiple times. It can be brutal if you mess up. PS4
hey man really love your content. I was struggling with finding the games I like but since our taste in games is very similar I found couple games i very much enjoyedd thanks to you
I thought I was going to despise the friendship simulator, but it ended up being one of my favorite aspects of the game. I have never been big on Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider. I was always a Johnny Blaze girly. Nic Cage took my heart and ran with it. But getting to become best friends with the people in the game made me appreciate characters a lot more. Robbie might be my favorite Ghost Rider now. I also adore getting to make my own hero in my favorite franchise. Anytime I get to do that the game gets a bonus from me. So the fact that I can say that *I* went on a mission with Spider-Man and Venom to fight demons, nets this game a win in my book.
It's NOT X-com. I went into it thinking it was x-com-ish and was jolted by the truth. It's a GOOD game, but it's NOTHING like x-com. No individual movement, no cover, NO MISSING!
I did see many excited for this game. But personally I was left confused and wondering who this was for. As a comic book fan and even a lover of superhero games, this left me perplexed as to why did they add all these functions. I wish a reboot of X-men legends an Marvel Ultimate Alliances.
My guess? The people who play fire emblem. That's the most popular competing franchise the xcom devs seem to be eyeing for improvements to their formula (or maybe they're just fans themselves). Particularly this seems like it might have been the idea for a gacha game at some point.
@@J3n50 They have been moving in this direction since xcom chimera squad: the friendship sim, the endless quips and dialogs, the focus on characters and stories...
This game was made for people like me. I'm a Marvel Comics fan, and still have my Rise of the Midnight Suns and Midnight Massacre comics from the 90s. I'm also a fan of Firaxis's X-com games, Bioware dialogue choices, and Slay the Spire. So this game is everything I could want. Every Marvel game doesn't have to be the same. Years ago, after playing X-com 2, I thought EA should have made a Star Wars tactical RPG game, as they had an exclusive license at the time. I'm an even bigger Marvel fan, and never thought about using Superheroes, so I've been excited for this ever since the announcement at Summer Gamesfest in 2021. Don't get me wrong, I like real time action games as well. The combat in Guardians was average, but the Storytelling was great, I've spent hundreds of hours leveling all the characters in the Avengers game, which has great combat, but bad support post release for a service game. Liked most of Spider-Man PS4, ,sans the stealth missons ,and even re-bought Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 when they were digitally re-released on PS4 and Xbox one in 2016. I also played X-Men Legends 1 and 2, 4 player on the original Xbox with friends 20 years ago, played the 3 MCU game/movie tie ins, and other things like Rise of the Imperfects, Shattered Dimensions & X-Men Origins Wolverine. We've had enough Marvel action games, and they're making more. Fans of other genres should have some Marvel Games in those genres as well. I'm loving Midnight Suns. I don't think there is anything wrong with the dialogue in the game. It's very Saturday morning cartoon expository, because this game is made for kids to adults, and you have to introduce the characters and mythos for people who may not be Marvel fans, or only know Marvel through the MCU. So characters have to over explain and reference, and that doesn't make the dialogue bad. A lot of good character work is done in the dialogue, and it pays off because you do feel familiar with the characters as the game progresses. If you don't like the micro management in the X-com base building, or managing relationships in Mass Effect or Fire Emblem, this game isn't going to be for you. But if you do like those things and X-com, you're going to love this.
Love this game! Agreed about the friendship stuff. I felt like i was playing Wish Persona. I enjoyed the abbey side once it opened out. Combat was 100% the best part, and it felt like xcom with superheroes, which was the point. I did end up getting the season pass once all the dlc characters are implemented I'll play another run and get the platinum. I wish there was like an evil campaign or mini campaign where you could play as the various villains. Could just play the multiverse card and have the player wreck the heros/hunter.
I am loving this game, and while I still can agree the friendship bits/writing is silly I still am very addicted to it lol, something about it is just really charming and wholesome
I also don't think the writing is terrible, it's just not great. The background story stuff, abbey exploration, and obviously the incredible combat make it so worth it.
The friendship as you describe it feels like it was made for a game with a different story. While becoming friends with Captain America sounds appealing it seems too out of character for him to pal about and form a book club when there should be stuff to do. I wouldn't be surprised it was repurposed from Chimera Squad. Or hell a Firaxis take on a game like Persona.
Neh, the point was to kinda give an idea of what it's like to live and interact with heroes as a hero during a crisis. Its fanboy shit written as goofy as you'd expect, and weirdly enough I dig it.
I love Book Club! I think it's fun to pal around with everyone between missions. It fulfills that living with the Avengers fantasy. Though they should have gone all the way with the dating as the X-men, Avengers, and every Marvel team dates within it's ranks. But going to the Book Club and analyzing the different opinions on the books really tells you a lot about the characters.
@@ombra711 That and I was also thinking, "Don't most games have unimportant sidequests/missions to do while you should be saving the world?" It's fine to not be into it, but I think I'm just used to it in games.
Truth is with all that "verrrrryyyy seriiiouuuss" marvel cinematic universe, Marvel fans (or new ones ?) have decided they hate fun. Goofy dialogs, ridiculous scenes, relationships, oh no, PLEASE MAKE IT EPIC AND SERIOUS. Tell me more about how serious Lilith is while takin literal months to do anythin in Dr Strange's house
Point Taken, however, every review I've seen has listed Story and Character as a negative of the game and that is a significant requirement of mine, in a game like this. In several games I can look past such things when they aren't the focus or main selling point, so for example I love the Mass Effect series and Andromeda failed to live up to its own standard, I still played it, still liked it but I hated paying full price for it at launch. These days I wait for reviews and price drops to fit its worth, in my eyes at least. Also, the microtransaction for skins in an SP game is a massive red flag and I don't want to do anything that the publishers see as acceptance of this terrible direction in game development.
Thanks for the info m8. Most of the people is saying the microtransactions are there to ruin the game but you clarify it definitely has no impact and no p2w like Ubisoft has done so many times. Congratulations btw
This is the review I've agreed with most about this game. I was a bit worried for the first few hours, but I enjoyed XCOM so much I wanted to give it a fair shake, and so far I agree, the combat is a lot of fun. The positioning and knocking enemies around reminds me of Into the Breach a bit. That said, I definitely found myself cringing at a lot of the dialog and wondering what those poor VAs were thinking having to read that. At least it settles into more simple corny fun (instead of just corny) a few hours in.
Good vid Mortym, the channel is booming 🔥 Game looks fun but don’t think I could put slog through the writing and story for this one tbh. Perhaps on sale
This was my favorite game of last year, easily. The combat was so damn good!! I hope that they take this system and use it in a lot more games. With some enhancements like adding verticality to it. I agree that the first few hours were a little rough, but I actually enjoyed the story and writing a lot. Now, I am a total Marvel guy so that definitely helps, but I'm not gonna lie. At the end before the final battle, I got a little misty, especially when talking to Charlie. It's such a shame that this game wasn't more successful. I think that the card-based aspect of it was a hard no for a lot of people that were already TRPG fans.
This game, as a magic the gathering player and huge marvel fan, this game is my fav game of all time. Honestly the replay value alone is epic but the love given to my fav characters and the battle animations are beautiful
I'm a big MTG fan too have been since Ice Age and I was also big time into Heroclix around 2005, use to go to tournaments so what I'm getting at here is.. I SHOULD have got this game sooner! but I'm glad it's on the way now. What made me look into it again was playing Baldur's Gate 3.
Thanks for making the video, had no idea of the channel but yt algo popped up. I got the legendary version of this game 2 days ago during BFCM sale for around USD26.30. I had read into a ton of reviews and it is the only game I bought during this black friday. About 10 hours in right now and I don't regret buying! Agree that it probably doesn't needed the friendship sim, if they wanted it to work, they should've invested more into it as a dating sim instead.
Yeah guess the jokes did not land for you. I agree the start of the abbey stuff is not great, but they have some amazing jokes, and there is SO MUCH Dialogue, from you talking to people and other people having conversations not involving you that you can overhear. Look me a while to get into it, but it really added to the atomosphere for me. And some of the writing is really really good. I particulary liked Blade teasing Robbie about not knowing the location of Transia on a map. I guess the joke is a bit meta as Transia is a fictional country, so kinda hard for anyone to put on a map :D, but it made me laugh.
First time I’ve ever disagreed with Mortim so strongly. I really liked this game, I loved seeing new sides of the mainstream characters, like tony starks aversion to magic, and dr stranges struggles with failure. And learning more about characters I’m not as familiar with. I’m not saying the early writing is perfect but it doesn’t assume u know everything about these characters and u spend time hashing that out, and learning what Lilith is and what she’s capable of. So that stretch where you aren’t as free to do what you want when, it’s purposeful, and the idea is your hunter is legendary, and trying to earn the trust and reputation you’ve been built up on by your historic deeds. Very unique marvel experience!
This game was so amazing. Glad I tried it during free play days. I was hooked after 2 hours. I’ve beat it on every single difficulty and have nearly 500 hours played. It’s amazing!!
Glad to see this review, wasn't at all interested when I heard about this game but heard so much good stuff I'm really interested bow and would love your opinion.
Just bought it on Epic for like 30-40% off, finaly a price im willing to pay. Seems it could be damn fun. But wooow, instantly when i start the game, it takes me to the shop haha.
Wow, you summed up my sentiments almost exactly. Got it free from Epic and the beginning was pretty boring : I felt like I had to power through 30 minutes of boredom to get 10 minutes of exciting fight. I was on the verge of stopping it, but then the game opened up, the dialogues/friendship simulator took less room, and the combat was more front and center. And the combat is super fun! I also like the strategic element (building decks, sending heroes on ops, etc.), but there are some irritants (having to move around the Abbey and different menus to burn, build and upgrade cards is annoying). I'm still playing it and do lots of side missions, but I'm having a blast. I just skip most dialogues to get to the fun faster, and it's helping a lot. Thanks for this review ans all the others! I enjoy your content. :)
I wish we can carry over our Ability cards for new game plus. It will help a lot in tackling higher difficulties. So we don’t have to grind those abilities over and over again everytime we start new game plus
so realistically, I couldn't fight Venom at the clock tower - on the hardest unlocked difficulty - with my endgame cards. only ever, would I be able to do is - Fight Venom on the Hardest Difficulty, with current cards only.
Bought this game after watching deadpool and wolverine movie and wow this game is soo good, i wanted to play a game with blade and thats exactly what i got.
I love the community you're building. All I see in your comments is love for games, thoughtful critiques, and respectful disagreement. I started watching you because I wanted to learn how to play BG1, but I'm staying because you have the best community in gaming. Keep it up!
I tempered my expectations after seeing the gameplay and I lost 65 hours of my life in the first 5 days to the game. Max friendships, max levels and perfect decks by the final mission. even played enough to unlock the correct colors for their midnight suns suits. I loved the game. hooked me in from the first hour. there were noticable bugs but i really loved the experience. Gonna wait for all the DLC before new game+ though. also fighting the bosses in random missions didnt happen as often as id like.
Honestly have not been able to put this game down. While a small amount of the writing can be very cringey, the overall story has been very good so far. I forget off hand if this game is T or M, but I think they may have toned down some of the dialogue in an effort to market to a larger audience. The friendship system has been a fun addition to me. Although some of the reactions to the dialogue options seem to make no sense, I think it's a fun mechanic that really speaks to fans of the Marvel universe. I do, however, agree that the gameplay, which I thought I'd have to suffer through to enjoy the other parts of the game, has been very well implemented and, most often, the perfect blend of challenging & fun. The only other TRPG I've played was Mutant: Year Zero, which I really liked, but thought was too challenging and complicated for a fringed fan of the genre, like me, to fully enjoy. This game is very, pick up and play, friendly, while offering a deeper challenging aspects to get those fulfilling 3 star mission ratings.
Yeah I was really hesitant on buying this game especially after I saw that it had microtransactions and were selling single DLC characters for 15$ each but I got this game recently for like 25$ and will start playing it soon. by the way you channel and reviews are awesome.
I just picked this game up on a steam sale and I don't regret it. I agree with most of yoyr assessments, but the combat really does carry the game past it's shortcomings.
Very informative, looks like I might give this one a miss then. Particularly as I suspect that those microtransactions are going to increase dramatically a week or so after launch as is typical.
I don't think so, I was looking at them today because I haven't really felt a need to even look into, but all the things you can buy are included in the Season Pass anyway. Unless they continue to add cosmetics? Which maybe that's the case, I dunno.
@@NickaLah I'm sure we have all seen it dozens of times over by now. The real heavy microtranscation don't usually get added in until some time after the reviews are released for the game.... But hey, I would be happy if that didn't happen in this instance.
Can't recall which thread/reviewer it was, but one take was that the game might've been intended to use all those currencies as paid MTX, but they backed off of it during development, possibly after Avengers blew up (in the bad way). We'll probably never know for sure, unless they do a mobile port and/or a design postmortem someday.
I dont see any microtransacions coming into the game beyond just liek.. cosmetics. The call of "this was clearly meant to be a microtransaction because there are so many different currencies is a pretty bad one ive seen a few reviewers make. The multiple currencies are just so you are upgrading different cards (Attack essence for attack cards, skill and heroic. THen Gloss is for cosmetic gear you can get ingame, Gold is for upgrading the base... Like its all different things very clearly assigned to a certain place in game its spent. There is no risk for htis being a microtransaction laden game.
When I heard "X-Com but with superheroes (from the makers of X-Com" I was sold. Everything else since then and the final game overall has been a huge letdown.
And you weren't kidding with the writing. I checked out a couple of let's plays and had to skip the dialogue parts (and there are a ton) because I just couldn't deal with how bad it was.
While I normally think very highly of your reviews, I have to challenge you on your scathing critique of the writing. While it's not gonna win any awards for originality, it's certainly up to the standard of most video game writing. While I understand that the relationship building elements sometimes feel out of place given the context of the story, I'm curious what you find so bad about the writing.
Oh and my expectations were low as i thought of it as a dumb down version of any TRPG, but at least they managed to write good combat. I will pick it up maybe in the future
I can understand 2K wanting to get on the Marvel money train but even though the game sounds better than I feared it still bugs me that this displaced Xcom 3. Good TRPGS do not grow on trees exactly.
@@iraford5788 If it did not displace XCOM 3 then where is 3? XCOM 2 was released almost 7 years ago, even allowing for work on the DLC that is a massive gap compared to the 4 years between XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2. And 'displace' does not mean the same thing as 'replace'. I'm not saying that Firaxis made Midnight Suns instead of making XCOM 3, I'm saying that XCOM 3 was delayed so that Midnight Suns could be finished first.
As an update, I'm enjoying this game a fair bit, which I didn't expect with the card mechanics. However I've noticed my clear times starting to drop, and out of curiosity I looked up a video of a couple people playing at higher difficulties and levels, and I got to say I didn't like what I saw. They were clearing an encounter in 1-3 turns, but it was like 40 minutes of playing free cards to stack redraws and just continuously cycling cards for quick attacks, free play mark cards, and heroism to spend on environmental attacks. This aspect of playing the *deck* as opposed to playing the heroes vs the enemies is exactly the kind of thing that made me wary of using cards as part of the game in the first place.
I agree with everything here. I use the escape button to skip everything that is not combat but the combat is a super fun experience I do have issue with the character unlocking stuff I've been playing nearly 15 - 20 hours and I've not unlocked scarlet witch wolverine or hulk which is fine but it's a bummer to he excited to play characters and them be locked out due to story reasons especially when the story is not interesting to me. I do also think they could have done a better job of adding some general support abilities for different characters. It's a little tied to doctor strange and nico. I'd like to see what a more support focused ghost rider could do with one or two extra abilities in there purely for support
I'm undecided about buying the game because I'm only interested in combat. So, when you say 'skip' by hitting the escape button, you mean you skip the entire scene or just one single sentence? Thanks
Just got this game for free with my RTX 3070 (Christmas gift) and loving it so far. I was a big comic book nerd in the 70s and early 80s, and this game is just checking a lot of my nerd boxes for me.
Thanks again, you saved me when the game released and today you save me again from throwing away my money. The tactical part I want to play, but that friendship simulator is a real showstopper for me… however I am not shitting on those who do.
Great review! Good combat is good enough for me but I don't intend to play this for a long while... Too much on the backlog so I certainly won't be overpaying
Thanks a million for the review. I was considering this game but thought the price was too high and also assumed right away, that the story and dialogue wouldn’t be great. So…..I’m definitely waiting for a sale before buying this game.
Ive been having such a great time with it on the steamdeck, and im not a particular fan of cards/the Avenger side of marvel. The tactical combat and FE: Three Houses social stuff loop goes down a treat
I'll double down on your theory and say that this game was originally planned to be a mobile game. The mediocre graphics (for a pc game), very basic artstyle and typical interface just screams mobile game to me. I never planned to buy this game in the first place, as i have no interest in super heroes whatsoever, but having to play the lenght of a decently sized indie game (5 hours) just to get to the "good" part is just crazy to me.
I picked this game up recently during a Steam sale, and I was pleasantly surprised by it! I remember seeing ads for the game and wanting to give it a shot, but never got around to it. I was surprised to find out that the game was considered a failure. I hope we at least get an expansion out of Firaxis, because I gave up any notion of a sequel after hearing that.
Buy on sale it is then. Childlike or young adult writing and narrative I can do without. If only the story and writing could be up to par as well - then I probably would buy it at full price.
Pretty much love the actual gameplay (combat and upgrades). I can suffer the cringe writting but the "friendship sim" is a stain on this otherwise good game
Funny I got similar impression from other reviews / gameplays. Dating sim mixed with Farmville. Oh and combat is there too. I cannot possibly imagine who in Firaxis thought its the good concept. I follow some guys and mushroom gathering and datings take more time than actual combat. No less than 3 types of loot boxes, 5 crafting mechanisms and around 7 currencies. Either they hired gamedesigner from Facebook or Marvel was paying extra for every pointless mechanics thta captivates small chidren, inbreds and MMO players. Hard pass unless they cut the price by 66% and add option to turn off World of Farmville: Immortal Grind
Missed opportunity to release this review at Midnight. Maybe if we haven’t been beaten senseless with superhero films the past decade I’d probably check this out.
